The 2026 AIGA Student Design Showcase
Putting on and promoting a record-breaking Student Design Showcase through strategic promotion and branding.
Role
Social Media Manager, Co-President, Graphic Designer, Brand Designer
Adobe Illustrator, Lightroom, Meta Business Suite, Google Suite, Pinterest.
Timeline
3 months (2026)
Collaborators
Krista Miner (Designer and Co-President), Catie Donnelley (Treasurer)
Tools
Record-Breaking
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New Submission Record
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Record-Breaking 〰️ New Submission Record 〰️
Overview
Quinnipiac University’s chapter of AIGA holds an annual design showcase to celebrate and show off the work of creatives in the Quinnipiac community. The event is open to anyone in the university. The showcase features work from eight different categories including Typography, Photography, UI/UX Design, Motion Graphics, Poster Design, Studio Art, Digital Illustration, and Social Media Campaigns. On the day of the event members of the Quinnipiac community can come out and vote on their favorite pieces. Work stays up all year long, giving visibility to the work of student designers in one of the smallest programs of the university.
At the beginning of the Spring semester we begin creating unique branding for that year’s showcase. From there we use our brand system to create a number of promotional materials including social media posts and flyers with information and countdowns to deadlines.
The Problem
During the 2025 Design Showcase our club struggled with promotion and reaching our submission goal, forcing us to extend our deadline to reach it. While we posted a lot on social media, we did not have a very large following and thus low visibility. We had a lack of physical promotion in academic buildings.
As one of the smallest majors at Quinnipiac University, our event provides Graphic and Interactive Design students as well as any other students with an interest in graphic arts a chance to shine and be recognized for their talents.
The Objective:
To increase the number of submissions, visibility, and event attendance for the 2026 AIGA Student Design Showcase through a cohesive branding system and a more strategic promotional approach. Our goals included, increasing submission count without extending deadlines, expanding reach, and improving promotion while creating a unique and striking visual identity.
The Branding
For the 2026 showcase, we intentionally shifted away from the multicolor, organic aesthetic of previous years. Instead we stripped down the color palette to a bright blue and white with sharp and structured shapes, inspired by blueprints. This direction helped position the showcase as more intentional and professional, while also making materials more recognizable and easier to scale across platforms.
Social Media Promotion
Phase 1: Submission Promotion
Focused on encouraging students to submit work by:
Posting deadline reminders and post/story countdowns
Highlighting categories and important submission information
Creating urgency around submission windows
Phase 2: Event Promotion
Focused on attendance and engagement by:
Sharing event details and location
Building anticipation leading up to the showcase
Promoting voting opportunities and perks like free pizza
Content was designed to feel consistent and easily identifiable within users’ feeds, helping improve visibility despite a smaller following.
Signage
A major improvement from the 2025 showcase was the introduction of a more robust physical signage system.
Promotional signage was placed throughout academic buildings and focused on increasing awareness and submissions. These helped raise awareness about the event and encourage submissions from those in and outside the School of Communications.
Directional signage, used day-of, helped guide attendees to the event location. This helped guide potential voters and lead people who may not have known about the showcase to the event location.
Event signage including category headers, voting QR codes and informational signage/disclaimers helped organize work at the event location and encourage voter participation.
Together, these elements created a more awareness around the showcase and made it a more navigable in-person experience.
Photography
I documented the event through photography, capturing student work on display, and attendees interacting with the showcase. These images were later used for promotion, documentation, and can be used in future marketing efforts, helping extend the life of the event beyond a single day.
Reflecting
The 2026 AIGA Student Design Showcase was a significant improvement over the previous year, both in reach and participation.
Results:
253 submissions (New Record)
112 voters (+133.33%)
18,000+ Instagram views
2,100 accounts reached (+950%)
460% increase in profile activity (275 interactions)
267 profile visits (+400%)
By introducing a more structured branding system and a strategic approach to promotion, we were able to expand visibility and drive higher engagement across both digital and physical spaces.
This project strengthened my ability to think strategically in order to build and execute cohesive campaigns across multiple touch points, use design to solve real problems like low visibility and engagement, and lead a team while balancing multiple roles and responsibilities. It also reinforced the importance of everything from file organization to content planning to successfully executing large-scale projects.
This experience pushed me to think of design not just as creating visuals, but as a tool for driving participation, building community, and creating meaningful opportunities for creatives in the Quinnipiac community.
What You Didn't See
Some behind the scenes work I did to run this years showcase that you didn’t see here includes:
File organization
Print process
Video editing
Written and verbal communication
Team collaboration
Onboarding new executive board